Naren Chandrashekar, MD

Following His Destiny

LEFT TO RIGHT: The Chandrashekars-
Ardan, Naren, Aloka, and ChayaWhile he doesn’t recall a specific event that made him want to become a doctor, Eisenhower Nephrologist Naren Chandrashekar, MD cannot remember wanting to do anything else. “I’ve always known I wanted to be a doctor. I think the fact that I came from a family of doctors — my father is a doctor and so is my uncle — may have been the reason. It seemed natural.”

With a career path clear in his mind, Naren headed to the University of California, Los Angeles for his under-graduate work, and then it was off to Tufts University in Boston for medical school. He completed a three-year residency in internal medicine followed by a fellowship in nephrology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. “I was drawn to nephrology because of the complexities of the kidney,” Chandrashekar says. “I was also very fortunate to have some excellent mentors at medical school and during residency who were nephrologists that I really admired.”

In 2002, Dr. Chandrashekar came to Eisenhower to join his father, who has been practicing in the desert since 1979. Chandrashekar treats primarily adult patients for everything from kidney failure to difficult to control high blood pressure and evaluation for kidney stones. “The kidney requires a lot of thought and calculation to treat it effectively,” Dr. Chandrashekar explains. “I am drawn to its physiology…and find it to be one of the most interesting organs in the body.”

Dr. Chandrashekar has been with Eisenhower Medical Center for seven years, four of which have been spent as Section Chief of Nephrology. “The caliber of the medical staff and their commitment to patient care makes it a pleasure to practice here. The number of highly talented physicians at Eisenhower allows me to provide my patients with the absolute best treatment options. You sometimes are concerned when you go to a smaller hospital that there may not be many high level physicians. This is not the case at Eisenhower. It is a unique place for a small town. If I need help with any patient, whether they have a heart problem or other medical problem, there is someone who is well versed in that field. Eisenhower is a wonderful place to provide care for the whole patient.”

“There are an increasing number of people with some degree of chronic kidney disease and with kidney failure who will need dialysis. People with kidney failure on dialysis still have a very high mortality rate of around 20 percent per year. I am looking forward to research that will help us understand how to curb kidney failure and decrease this mortality rate once a patient is on dialysis.”

—-Naren Chandrashekar, MD

When he is not practicing medicine, you can find Dr. Chandrashekar enjoying time with his family, cooking or exercising — “the latter made necessary by the former,” he chuckles. His two children Chaya, age eight, and Ardan, age three, and wife Aloka enjoy going on family vacations to the beach and mountains. A favorite recent trip was to Whistler Blackcomb ski resort in British Columbia, Canada. “Ardan got on skis last year. That was a quite an accomplishment!”

The doctor and his wife can frequently be found in the kitchen making anything from entrées to soufflés. “It is something we like doing together. It’s an enjoyable release.” Dr. Chandrashekar is also quite adept at grilling. “We did a lot of grilling and barbecuing when I was a resident in Texas.”

Content with his work and home life, Dr. Chandrashekar is excited about the potential for future research in nephrology. “There are an increasing number of people with some degree of chronic kidney disease and with kidney failure who will need dialysis. People with kidney failure on dialysis still have a very high mortality rate of around 20 percent per year. I am looking forward to research that will help us understand how to curb kidney failure and decrease this mortality rate once a patient is on dialysis.”